Significant Campaigns

This chapter examines which national-secession campaigns get on the agendas of the gate-keepers of sovereign statehood—the western great powers. The key is the success of programmatic coordination—creating within the platform population the expectation that other members of the platform population will see the goal of independence as an authentic expression of nationhood and realistic plan of action. The importance of programmatic coordination is illustrated by the contrast between the failed Novorossiia and successful Moldova campaigns. Using evidence for 3741 ethnic groups around the world from 1945 to 2010, statistical analysis provide support for the role of programmatic coordination under conditions where appeals to conventionalized nations and unique, identifiable homelands are more likely to be seen as authentic. And appeals to precedents of statehood based on larger populations without opportunities to participate in the central government of the existing state are more likely to be seen as realistic programs.